The Anchors Aweigh series was placed in honor of the men of the
US Navy who have served in the defense of our country. Each cache
is dedicated to one of the warships involved in battle. If you find
all the caches in the series, you’ll reveal some nice GeoArt
on your cache map. These are not difficult caches to find. If you
cannot find a cache easily, it’s probably missing. Send me a
picture (by email, not in your log) of where you think the cache
should be, and I’ll accept the find and replace the
cache.
Because of the difficulty in finding suitable locations for some
of the caches, some puzzle caches were used (not this one) so that
the find icon could be in a location separate from the cache. You
should be able to solve the puzzles with information on this cache
page. I suggest you solve the puzzles before you make your cache
run, to help optimize the route.
USS Arizona
USS Arizona was a Pennsylvania-class battleship built for
the United States Navy and the first to be named "Arizona". On 4
March 1913, Congress authorized the construction of Arizona,
named to honor the 48th state's admission into the union on 14
February 1912. The ship was the second and last of the Pennsylvania
class of "super-dreadnought" battleships. She was launched on 19
June 1915, sponsored by Esther Ross, the daughter of a prominent
Arizona pioneer, W.W. Ross of Prescott.
Arizona served stateside during World War I. She is
mostly remembered because of her sinking, with the loss of 1,177
lives, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December
1941, the event that provoked the United States into entering World
War II. Unlike most of the other ships sunk or damaged that day,
the Arizona could not be salvaged, although the U.S. Navy
removed several elements of the ship that were reused.
The wreck still lies at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. The USS
Arizona Memorial, dedicated in 1962 to all those who died
during the Pearl Harbor attack, was built astraddle the ship's
hull. The Arizona retains the right, in perpetuity, to fly
the United States flag as if she were an active, commissioned naval
vessel.
Battle of Pearl Harbor
USS Arizona Following Modernization in the 1930s
USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor
Shortly before 8:00 am, Japanese aircraft from six aircraft
carriers struck the Pacific Fleet as it lay in port at Pearl
Harbor, and—in the ensuing two attack waves—wrought
devastation on the Battle Line and on air and military facilities
defending Pearl Harbor. Onboard Arizona, the ship's air raid
alarm went off about 07:55, and the ship went to general quarters
soon thereafter. Shortly after 08:00, the ship was attacked by 10
Nakajima B5N "Kate" torpedo bombers, five each from the carriers
Kaga and Hiryu. All of the B5Ns were carrying 410-millimeter (16.1
in) armor-piercing shells modified into 797-kilogram (1,760 lb)
aircraft bombs. Flying at an estimated altitude of 3,000 meters
(9,800 ft) Kaga's aircraft bombed from amidships to the ship's
stern and were followed shortly afterwards by Hiryu's bombers which
bombed the bow area.
The preliminary report, filed on 28 January 1942, on the damage
suffered by Arizona during the attack listed seven bomb hits
as well one torpedo hit on the port bow forward. This last hit was
based on a report from the captain of the repair ship Vestal
moored alongside and could not be verified at the time. One bomb
was thought to have gone down the stack, but this was contradicted
when the ship's superstructure was salvaged in 1942 and the cap of
the funnel was intact. Later assessments show a total of four hits
on the Arizona, plus three near misses. The near miss off
the port bow is believed to have caused observers to believe that
the ship had been torpedoed, although no torpedo damage has been
found. The sternmost bomb ricocheted off the face of Turret IV and
penetrated the deck to detonate in the captain's pantry, causing a
small fire. The next forwardmost hit was near the port edge of the
ship, abreast the mainmast, and probably detonated in the area of
the anti-torpedo bulkhead. The next bomb struck near the port rear
5-inch AA gun.
The last bomb hit at 08:06 in the vicinity of Turret II, likely
penetrating the armored deck near the ammunition magazines located
in the forward section of the ship. While not enough of the ship is
intact to judge the exact location, its effects are indisputable.
About seven seconds after the hit, the forward magazines detonated
in a cataclysmic explosion. It mostly vented through the sides of
the ship and destroyed much of the interior structure of the
forward part of the ship. This caused the forward turrets and
conning tower to collapse downwards some 25–30 feet and the
foremast and funnel to collapse forward. The explosion took 1,177
lives of the 1,400 crewmen on board at the time, almost half of the
lives lost during the attack. The explosion touched off fierce
fires that burned for two days; debris showered down on Ford Island
in the vicinity. Ironically, the blast from this explosion also put
out fires on the repair ship Vestal, which was moored
alongside.
Two competing theories have arisen about the cause of the
explosion. The first is that that the bomb detonated in or near the
black powder magazine used for the ship's saluting guns. This would
have detonated first and then ignited the smokeless powder magazine
which was used for the ship's main armament. A 1944 Navy Bureau of
Ships report suggests that a hatch leading to the black powder
magazine was left open, possibly with inflammable materials stocked
nearby. The Naval History & Heritage Command explained that
black powder might have been stockpiled outside of the armored
magazine. This theory is attractive because black powder is easy to
ignite and the relatively small amount of explosive filler in the
bomb could have easily done so. The alternative explanation is that
the bomb penetrated the armored decks and detonated directly inside
one of the starboard magazines for the main armament. The problem
is that smokeless powder is relatively insensitive to fire and the
14-inch powder bags actually required a black powder pad to ignite
the powder. However, it seems unlikely that a definitive answer to
this question will ever be found as the surviving physical evidence
is insufficient to determine the cause of the magazine
explosion.
Acts of heroism on the part of Arizona's officers and men
were many, headed by those of Lieutenant Commander Samuel G. Fuqua,
the ship's damage control officer, whose coolness in attempting to
quell the fires and get survivors off the ship earned him the Medal
of Honor. Posthumous awards of the Medal of Honor also went to Rear
Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, the first flag officer killed in the Pacific
war, and to Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh, who reached the
bridge and was attempting to defend his ship when the bomb that hit
the ammunition magazines destroyed her.
Arizona was placed "in ordinary" (declared to be
temporarily out of service) at Pearl Harbor on 29 December, and was
struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 December 1942. Her
surviving superstructure was scrapped during 1942 while her main
armament was salvaged over the next year and a half. The aft main
gun turrets were removed and reinstalled as United States Army
Coast Artillery Corps Battery Arizona at Kahe Point on the west
coast of Oahu and Battery Pennsylvania on the Mokapu Peninsula,
covering Kaneohe Bay. The latter battery fired its guns for the
first and last time in August 1945 while Battery Arizona was never
completed. Both forward turrets were left in place, although the
guns from Turret II were salvaged and later installed on the
battleship Nevada in the fall of 1944 after having been
straightened and relined. The Nevada later fired these same guns
against the Japanese islands of Okinawa and Iwo Jima.
It is commonly, but incorrectly, believed that Arizona
remains perpetually in commission, like the USS
Constitution. Arizona is under the control of The
National Park Service, while the US Navy retains the title.